AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (3) And Moving On

BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

Ahmed Musa (L) and Stephen Keshi. Image: Paul Gilham/Getty

In my first prediction, I had said the Super Eagles would beat the Balkan state of Bosnia-Herzogovina. They did. In my second prediction, captioned "Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (2) And Thus Far," I said the Super Eagles would win by looking closely to the Argentinian-Iranian encounter and which by if Stephen Keshi studies the tapes carefully, that an Emmanuel Emenike-led attack to weaken the Argentinaian defense  shouldn't be a big deal if the focus was worked on; to demolish the guarded walls of  Ezequiel Garay, Marcus Rojo and Pablo Zabaleta by disorganizing their strategic defense patterns and opening chances at the goal. There were, however, some few chances though the breakthrough came with Emenike's assist to Peter Odemwingie who striked for the goal, beating the Balkan state by a lone goal. 

Argentina wasn't a tough crack. It had no strong defense as assumed and the Super Eagles couldn't penetrate, though, by a stroke of good luck, they were able to clear the hurdle at the mercy of Bosnia-Herzogovina that had sent Iran home in a game played simultaneously for favors not be given a chance.

With some of the game's powerhouses---Portugal, England, Italy, Spain---in early exit accompanied by Africa's Ivory Coast and Ghana, and luck not on Africans' side, the Super Eagles, no question, has all it takes to withstand the French forces when they clash on Monday at the Estadio Nacional Stadium in Brasilia. France, another powerhouse of the globe's sports festival which begun in 1930, in Uruguay, on commemoration of Uruguay's 100 years constitution and, having won the Gold for the 1928 Olympic Games,France will test its skills with the Super Eagles.

So far, the Brazil 2014 football festival has been a great success. Quite an interesting World Cup with lots of surprises and emerging brilliant football playing nations like Costa Rica, Bosnia-Herzogovina and Iran, despite sanctions and a pariah status over the years, Iran proved it's a nation to be reckoned with and not to be brushed aside when it comes to the game. Yes, Iran did not go down as had been anticipated; giving its group partners---Argentina, Nigeria and Bosnia-Herzegovina---runs for their money. Argentina in particular will attest to that, save for its powerful striker in Lionel Messi.

Last night, I had called my brother for a gist on the ongoing tournament and his take particularly on the upcoming Monday, June 30, Nigeria-France match. He really wants Nigeria to beat France, and Algeria beating Germany so the two African nations could meet for the first time in the tournament's history; and he was confident "soothsaying" it would happen. I was on his side, not on prayer lines, but for the fact that the Super Eagles is a better team in addition to its reign as Champion of the continent's Nations' Cup. We talked into the night in a relative discourse that had taken us aback to when the tournament began and when the magnificent Edson Arantes dos Nascimento (Pele) at 17, had featured in the World Cup representing his country, standing out as the youngest to tap the leather, following years of what would be a stigma attached to the living legend, Pele. We talked among others, the best organized and entertaining in the tournament's history, the 1970 festival Pele had helped the Selecao lift the trophy for the third time, in Mexico City.

My brother had questioned why Keshi had not been playing the multipositional Victor Moses. "Keshi is already a veteran," I said, "he has been around and knows his boys very well." With the Stoke City striker, Peter Odemwingie, as replacement, it's never a lost enterprise. He scored the first goal for his country in the tournament and with a combination of Emmanuel Emenike, there's hope for deliverance. All they have to do, like I previously said regarding its attack on Argentina, would be to stop midfielder Morgan Schneider and Yohan Cabaye who returns to the French starting line-up for Monday's encounter.

Enter the CSKA Moscow winger, Ahmed Musa. His focus and ability to shoot straight at the goal earned him two quick goals against Argentina. He should never stop capitalizing on those chances like he did with Argentina, aiming at the goal post.

Nigeria beating France shouldn't be seen as an upset. The Super Eagles is a better team. Losing only comes when their craft is combined with recklessness, and when Keshi declines to play key players at the right time as the changes demand.

Now that Egbon Goodluck Jonathan kept his word and stashed the players' pockets with a long awaited cash bonuses, keeping focussed and intact with the games' framework, I see Keshi lifting the trophy. I love this game and up the Super Eagles.

AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear (2) And Thus Far

BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

Final Draw of the 2006 FIFA World Cup: Coaches of Switzerland Koebi Kuhn, Togo's Nigerian Stephen Keshi, France's Raymond Domenech and South Korea's Dutch head coach Dick Advocaat (L-R) shake hands after the draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup finals in Leipzig, eastern Germany, December 9, 2005. The four countries were drawn in Group G for the World Cup finals. Date: December 9, 2005. Image: Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua Press

Nigeria's first major FIFA World Cup attempt began in 1976 with the Preliminary Rounds of the African Zone; and, in 1977, when the Final Round of the Preliminaries was played on a league schedule drawing Tunisia, Egypt and Nigeria together as the finalists with one of the three teams to represent Africa. With a home court advantage, Nigeria needed just a win against Tunisia for a spot at the Argentina tournament. 

When it comes to Ahia Mgbede, Nigerians are known to be totally united neverminding the archrivalry between the front-running clubsides of the day and its key players---the IICC Shooting Stars Football Club (Ibadan Investment Credit Corporation) of Ibadan and the Rangers International Football Club of Enugu. There were other picks from the minor clubsides like Haruna Illerika and co. destined to promote Ahia Mgbede spirit in the country, the only source and key ingredient to national unity.

With a nation united on Ahia Mgbede, the death squads ceased to exist in their operations over rival ethnic teams. The consultation of the Babalawos and images of the rivals picked to be pinned during encounters had to be waved for a national call. So, too, was the Oracle visits to the shrines on the Eastside where concoctions of the shrines' red soils and decayed mammals are mixed in drinks for supernatural powers, cast away and done with. There were no more invocations of "Agwuishi na Amadioha" with the chants of "Isee o, Isee o" and things of that nature that the enemy must fall and be destroyed by the gods of nd'amala. And on the Westside, the gods of ifa had also been cautioned to cease and desist as well, regarding its voodoo deities' "eleda" to come through and destroy its enemies before the battle begins. No god was much better. They had come to terms with reality. That what was needed was collectivity for ultimate utopianism.

A dialogue reached between spirits of the land. 

And they arrived.

One nation under God, indivisible with destiny, and oneness becomes the ideal. Folks from all ethnic localities would meet at the pubs and drink in unism. They would drink together on the sidewalks chanting "one nation under God; we shall overcome our predicaments," following calls for more booze and in euphoria, that never had there been a team assembled in the nation's history to play as one with the passion of the sport and a display of patriotism.

On the drive toward Argentina '78, the team built by the Yugoslavian "Soccer Bully," Father Tiko, had nothing in comparison to all of the African continent and what was up and about to unfold on the playgrounds heading to Latin America. So close, and if it wasn't for Godwin Odiye's miscalculated intercepting header, that finest squad would have gone to Argentina and made Nigeria proud. In fact, bring the trophy home. Yes, that's how Tiko's boys were in the day and time they had to be feared and notably, the clubside, Enugu Rangers, defeating Germany's Dundee United in that classic friendly, showing the world they belonged.

The FIFA World Cup had been the treat; the lost, and yet again, Odiye becomes a national nightmare on which the nation is yet to recover.

Then and again, the Eagles had expected to be compensated for that loss---to win the African Cup of Nations for the first time which was held in Ghana, in 1978. It never came. The Chairman Christian Chukwu-led squad had lost to Uganda in the semis while my fellow school mate, the wizard dribbling Ahmed Polo, captained the Black Stars to lift the trophy for a record fourth time.

Playing at the World Cup had become a mirage for a nation so huge in human capital and buoyant in its natural resources to be able to produce an outstanding team on national calls. As of that time, in 1978, a young lad named Stephen Okechukwu Keshi was tapping leather at St. Finbarrs College, and before then, the Iponri neighborhood had been his hangout where folks tested skills in the event of academic scheduled mandates or national calls. The Nations Cup was coming up, and the "bully trainer" Tiko, had kept his men intact save for some new addition which included the youngest to tap the scene on national call; an energetic, athletically combined left-footed striker by the name of Henry Nwosu. The vibrant press had warned the nation's football organizing body not to field him. They called on Tiko to drop him; that he was too young and lacked experience in a tournament Nigeria wanted its trophy bad, on a life and death situation. Nwosu was not dropped; he became the nation's youngest striker and among the cast that brought Nigeria the African Cup of Nations Trophy. Keshi had not been seen or surfaced anywhere he could be identified as a national treasure.

With Nations Cup in the books from a Chairman Chukwu's-led campaign victory, the Jules Rimet Trophy became an immediate target. Appearance at the World Cup never came. it was still a mirage. All sorts of national coaches began to emerge until the employment of Brazilian Otto Gloria Nigerians thought he would deliver not realizing he was an arm chair coaching specialist, not the type wanted by the nation at its desperate hour.

Yes, a mirage and a very distant Trophy from view. 

But then, came Clemens Westerhof and a football clinic that generated and prepared the finest cast for the showdown of nations, clearing the hurdle, eventually. Winning the African Nations Cup Nigeria gained its spot at the 1994 World Cup held on the shores of America. Great representation which overnight catapulted Nigeria as an emerging powerhouse in global football. Keshi was on the roll call in Nigeria's first ever appearance on FIFA's global football festival held around the cities in the United States. Equal to the task and in its rookie year, the Eagles gave its best and slugged it out with the robust playing Roerto Baggio-led Italian team.

The aftermath of the FIFA 1994 USA wasn't favoring Nigeria on the global arena when Westerhof had left and a team determined to reach the top on its level began to lose its steam. Keshi left and came to California for a brief stunt with aging players and a take at coaching. On the squabbles for a national coach after going down the hill on performances, a suspension by the presidency and a Nigerian obsessed with foreign coaches, nothing worked until Keshi was considered for the top coaching job after years of neglect which had him look elsewhere---Mali and Togo---he coached successfully to be given attention.

Like in the first part of this piece, Keshi had been called for a "high tech" lynching by a Nigerian "wild, wild," fanatical mob when his chances became very slim in last years nations cup in South Africa until he turned things around and coached the Super Eagles to victory, winning the trophy as a player and as a coach, and first of its kind in the nation's history. Now the history maker is about to complete another mission and add more credits to boost his resume. I had predicted victory for the Eagles before the Bosnia-Herzogovina encounter. 

Looking closely to the Argentina-Iran encounter, it doesn't take too much probing to come to terms that Argentina is beatable. Without much ado, a fierce Super Eagles attack enforced by the magnificent Emmanuel Emenike would for sure weaken the defense of Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo and or, Pablo Zabaleta and, open up chances for the "spoiled brats'". Victory then, would be easily theirs.  On the Super Eagles defense, like the Iranians did, neutralizing the firepower of its forwards---Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Gonzalo Higuain and or midfielder Maxi Rodriguez---they will smile all the way to the Knockout Rounds. Again, the firepower of the Argentinian forwards must be neutralized and its defense weakened.

The line for the Nigeria-Argentina match Wednesday, June 25, 2014 at the Estadio Beira-Rio Stadium, Porte Alegre will be in favor of the Super Eagles. With more opening chances, Nigeria by two.

AHIA MGBEDE: Stephen Keshi, A Hurdle To Clear

By Ambrose Ehirim

In February 2013 which is exactly 16 months ago, Stephen Keshi was a national hero and an African icon having head-coached the Super Eagles to victory at the Nations' Cup in South Africa. He came from behind on the scorecards with an uncertain fate and eventually changed his flawed strategy and, took the last laugh on which his boys, the Super Eagles, came out celebrating a trophy no Nigerian ever thought was possible. Vibes from the "negative press" had written him off and a die hard football fanatics, the raged but flamboyant supporters had been demoralized and hopeless, as a result, until Super Eagles lifted the trophy.

Turning out to a point Keshi and his boys would be mobbed upon return, a loser, from the tournament, his efforts and change of strategy alongside a very good luck that came on his side, the Super Eagles pulled it out lighting up the spirit of the nation that was once down. There was no mourning. The Super Eagles won.

I had joined the bandwagon to talk down on Keshi and his boys, neverminding applauding my boy, the magnificent Emmanuel Emenike, I had awarded an asterisk branding him a spoiled brat due to the way he celebrated his goals, which I thought he overemphasized. Nigerian mobs came after me for calling Emenike and his colleagues "Spoiled Brats." It was just my heartbeat. It's the nature of the sport and nothing, absolutely nothing, buys that. the ladies, for sure, knows that, too.

Yes.

The Super Eagles victory at the 2013 Nations' Cup brought along with it, all sorts of fanfare---joyous festivities and merry making---a free sex festival and all that you can handle. I missed it. Cash was pouring in from every corner. Gifts were overwhelmingly given. Structures were named after them. Keshi, in particular, stood the test of the moment. He smoked all the way to the bank and, even by the time the Globacom Chairman, Mike Adenuga, knew it, he had already lavished Keshi with fleet of cars and millions in any currency.

Here we go again. Keshi, about to be lynched from a game his country folks thinks he's to blame, the speculations now is that Keshi had already planned his relocation and not nearing his home country knowing the consequences of throwing the country into serious mourning after a devastating FIFA World Cup performances. In fact, the speculation is alleging Keshi is coming out here, the City of Angels, to hang with us and save himself from a "wild, wild," unforgiving Nigerian Football fanatics. Godwin Odiye knows better and we all bear witness.

In tomorrow's game against one of the Balkan states, the Bosnian-Herzegovinaians, Nigerians must come out and throw support...lift up the spirits of these youngsters for a must win. The Super Eagles will win and, it's our call; we the people!

The Super Eagles must attack
like its cousin, the Hawk
The Super Eagles must fly
over the mountains and over the seas
Like its buddy, the Dove
Like the Dove, they must show
compassion, love and oneness
The Super Eagles must win...

For a guy who helped lift the trophy as a player in 1994, playing from the bottom of his heart; coached his national team to victory during the 2013 African Nation's Cup Finals and represented his country very well at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, he deserves no mob lynching but courage!

Ahia Mgbede: Emmanuel Emenike Moves Back To Fenerbahce

My boy and spoiled brat, Emmanuel Emenike (R), is congratulated by teammates after his freekick was deflected into the net by Momo Sissoko of Mali during the Nation's Cup in South Africa February 6, 2013. Image: Associated Press

26-year-old Emenike will be taking home annually 2.6 million Euros returning back to Fenerbahce on a 13 million Euros loan transfer from the Moscow Spartak Football Club.

"It is expected, and I am happy to be living up to the big expectations of the club and fans. I am ready to give more, I will keep on making everybody happy as long as I am happy on the pitch. It means a lot to me scoring another goal.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg, I am ready to keep on improving every day. It is great proving so much at this point, I will keep doing my best to score goals whenever I have the opportunity. I am on a high, I want to do better this season.

"I have said it earlier that I want my performance to speak for me this season and that is happening because that is the way I can repay the team and my fans for the time lost due to injury.

"My first league goal gave me so much confidence after going a long time not scoring for Spartak, I am fully concentrating on how I can help my club and as things going now, we are poised to challenge for the title."

------------Emmanuel Emenike

N'ekwu-ekwu; n'aba mba!

Nigeria tops Ivory Coast 2-1 to reach African Cup semifinals; Drogba left without title again

TALES AZZONI FEBRUARY 3, 2013

NIGERIA'S EMMANUEL EMENIKE CELEBRATES AFTER SCORING THE OPENING GOAL AGAINST IVORY COAST DURING THEIR AFRICAN CUP OF NATIONS QUARTERFINAL MATCH AT THE ROYAL BAFOKENG STADIUM IN RUSTENBURG, SOUTH AFRICA, SUNDAY, FEB. 3, 2013. IMAGE: ARMANDO FRANCO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

RUSTENBURG, South Africa - Nigeria defeated tournament favourite Ivory Coast 2-1 to reach the semifinals of the African Cup of Nations on Sunday, keeping Didier Drogba and his teammates from lifting the trophy.

Sunday Mba scored the winner with a shot from outside the area in the 78th minute, helping Nigeria advance to the last four for the sixth time in eight tournaments.

Emmanuel Emenike opened the scoring for Nigeria with a long-range shot that was misplayed by Ivory Coast goalkeeper Boubacar Barry in the 43rd minute, and Cheik Tiote equalized in the 50th with a header from a free kick cross taken by Drogba, who might have had his last chance to win a trophy with his national team.

Nigeria will now play Mali, which eliminated host South Africa on penalties on Saturday in Durban. Burkina Faso and Emmanuel Adebayor's Togo will play the last quarterfinal later Sunday in Nelspruit, with the winner facing Ghana.

The match in Rustenburg was one of the most anticipated of the quarterfinals, with some of the tournament's top names facing each other. Ivory Coast had Drogba, Arsenal's Gervinho and Manchester City's Yaya Toure, while Nigeria was led by Chelsea duo Victor Moses and John Obi Mikel.

Nigeria had most of the chances in the first half but Ivory Coast improved in the second and threatened more often, especially with Drogba and Arsenal forward Gervinho up front.

But it was Mba who came up big near the end. He made a run through the Ivory Coast defence and cleared a couple of markers before getting near the area to fire a right-footed shot that deflected on a defender and went over Barry.

Emenike put Nigeria on the board after a free kick from about 30 metres (yards) away. Mikel just rolled the ball and the Spartak Moscow striker fired a powerful shot through the wall, fooling Barry as he tried to punch the ball away in the middle of the goal. The shot didn't appear to deflect off anybody before getting past just to the side of Barry.

Ivory Coast pressed forward after the goal and Tiote equalized with a header from near the far post following a well-placed free kick by Drogba, who earned the set piece when he was fouled just outside the area near the sideline.

The 34-year-old Drogba had the last chance of the match with a header that sailed over the crossbar in stoppage time.

The Title Is going To Nigeria: Emenike

By Ramatsiyi Moholoa/Sowetan Live 

IVORY Coast and Bafana Bafana are in dreamland if they hope to clinch the 29th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations finals.

Speaking after their 2-0 win over Ethiopia at Royal Bafokeng Stadium on Tuesday night to qualify for the quarterfinals, Nigeria striker Emmanuel Emenike said they were equally hungry to end their Afcon title drought.

The Super Eagles last won the Afcon title back in 1994 in Tunisia with their current coach Stephen Keshi serving as captain.

"The game against Ethiopia was our toughest to date in this tournament. They are a good team but we played as a unit to advance to the knockout stages," said Emenike, who has scored twice in this tournament.

"The focus is now on the quarterfinal match against Ivory Coast here in Rustenburg on Sunday. It's one hell of a game that everybody has been waiting for. We are going to recharge our batteries after the win over Ethiopia.

"Ivory Coast have an array of big-name stars, but names do not play. It's all about commitment on the day. They have top players like Yaya Toure, Didier Drogba, Gervinho and Didier Zokora but we are ready. As a team we have been watching all their games; they have not been impressive," said the former Mpumalanga Black Aces striker who is now based in Russia.

Ivory Coast are chasing their first Afcon title after 21 years, while Bafana, who meet Mali in their quarterfinal in Durban on Saturday, won it on home soil in 1996.

Emenike said: "Just like Ivory Coast, Bafana Bafana are in for a big surprise if they think they will reclaim the title.

"The title is going to Nigeria this time round. We will definitely be in the final on February 10 (at the National Stadium) and will be crowned winners."

Nigeria's Class of 1994 included Keshi's assistant Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel Amunike, Sunday Oliseh and Jay Jay Okocha.